Linux 2.2 was a major improvement over Linux 2.0 and the Linux 1.x series. It supported many new filesystems, a new system of file caching, and it was much more scalable. Linux 2.4 builds on these things and more to be the best darned Linux kernel yet in a variety of situations.

You find yourself in a situation where nothing but Linux will do but you wind up sitting in front of a workstation running that other OS. You'll want to access resources in ways where only Linux seems to provide the tools you need. Luckily, you've got Linux in your pocket, on a 3-1/2-inch floppy diskette, no less.

After much page turning and mouse-clicking, I discovered that the truth really is out there and you can change screen resolution. The process is complicated by a fact that I, a former Windows user, had taken for granted. X, the virtual machine running my graphics for me, was not preconfigured to accept every video card known to Humankind.

People new to Linux often hear that it has excellent support for all kinds of cards and that the device drivers are stable and fast. Sometimes, though, setting up devices under Linux is often not all plug-and-play. Below we try to demystify Linux device drivers, with the aim of smoothing device selection during installs.

I'm a big fan of the Linux operating system, but until lately I was convinced that Linux had a long way to go before it could match Windows or the Mac in being easy to use. And then I installed Corel Linux. Boy, was I wrong!

The hype over Linux has principally centered on the open-source operating system running on Intel processors. Intel surely loves this scenario, as it wouldn't have to depend so heavily on the Wintel "duopoly" with Microsoft for such a huge portion of its business. Having so many of your eggs in one basket can be a dangerous business plan, especially when the feds are trying to crack open your partner.

Linux vs. Windows. It's a battle fought on many fronts. While a worldwide legion of Linux developers has successfully mounted a frontal attack on Microsoft's WinNT in the servers, routers, firewalls, and telecommunications markets, the open-source community has quietly set its sites on another of Microsoft's three OSes: WinCE -- the Windows operating system for handheld and embedded devices.

As Linux and FreeBSD often run side by side, Linux administrators would do well to learn how to configure FreeBSD to meet their needs. Michael Lucas presents a guide to customizing the FreeBSD kernel, written for the Linux oriented.

Until now, running Linux on a laptop has been pretty much a do-it-yourself job. No vendors offered notebook computers with Linux already installed, so users had to buy a Windows machine, yank that operating system and then install Linux themselves. The process wasn't always easy: finding and installing the right device drivers for a particular laptop could be time-consuming even for a technically savvy user -- and a show-stopper for a Linux novice.

RPM (Redhat Package Manager) is an excellent package manager. RPM can be used for building, installing, querying, updating, verifying, and removing software packages. This brief article will show you some of the usage of the rpm tool.